Club all cases against RERA, govt to tell SC

NEW DELHI: The housing and urban development ministry has decided to move the Supreme Court for clubbing of all cases relating the Real Estate (Regulation & Development) Act (RERA), which have been filed in different high courts, so that these can be decided by one court. These petitions have challenged the constitutional validity of the law.

The ministry has proposed to the law ministry to move the transfer petition case in the SC considering that in all these cases, the petitioners (builders and developers) have challenged the law’s constitutional validity.

This was submitted before the Bombay HC’s Nagpur bench on Monday. A bunch of cases came up for hearing both at the Nagpur bench and the Madhya Pradesh HC.

Monday was last day for registration of new projects

These cases have been posted for hearing after four weeks.

The builders’ main contention is that the provision of bringing all “ongoing projects” under RERA have retrospective effect since the projects were started when there was no such law, and hence the law is illegal.

They have even challenged the Centre’s right to enact the law relating to land, which is a state subject, and contended that submitting details of projects to the regulator would amount to infringement of the right to privacy. Monday was the last day for registration of all incomplete and new projects with the realty regulator.

Though the law provides for penalty for failure to comply the norm, it remains to be seen whether states will act tough or give some relaxation considering that many of them have not yet put in place a permanent regulator.

According to ministry sources, till Monday 23 states and UTs had notified the real estate regulation rules.

Six states have prepared the draft, but are yet to notify them. Only four states have established permanent regulators while another 19 have set up interim regulators.

Maharashtra has taken the lead among states where the regulator has received applications for registration of about 10,000 projects and about 7,000 agents. In Gujarat, around 110 applications of projects and 80 of agents have been submitted while offline registration has started in Haryana.

In the case of MP, 700 applications of projects and agents have been received. In Karnataka, over 220 applications for registration of projects and agents have been received.

Currently, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) is levied at 12 per cent on payments made for under-construction property or ready-to-move-in flats where completion certificate has not been issued at the time of sale.